On 3/24/07, James G. Sack (jim) <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Carl Lowenstein wrote:
> On 3/24/07, Ralph Shumaker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> Ralph Shumaker wrote:
>>
>> > Steve Bibayoff wrote:
>> >
>> >> Hello,
>> >>
>> >> On 3/23/07, Todd Walton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> On 3/22/07, Ralph Shumaker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> >>> > Thank you john. But be that as it may, what would be so hard about
>> >>> > adding a little note in the echo man page
>> >>>
>> >>> Hear hear.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> This is Open Source. Why don't one of you provide a patch to the man
>> >> page and feed it upstream.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> ;-)
>> >>
>> >> Steve
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > How do I "provide a patch to the man page"?
>> >
>> > How do I "feed it upstream"?
>> >
>> >
>> It seems that the second question has already been answered. But the
>> first question still stands.
>>
>
> Presumably something like the following. Note that man pages are in
> compressed troff format. So first uncompress the file into some
> temporary place.
>
> $ cd /var/tmp
> $ zcat /usr/share/man/man1/echo.1.gz > echo.1
> Save a copy of it.
> $ cp echo.1 echo.1.orig
>
> Use your troff skills to modify the file echo.1 to do what you think
> it should do.
> You can see how this worked by invoking the "man" program.
> $ man ./echo.1
>
> When finished to satisfaction, use diff(1) to produce a patch file.
> $ diff --unified echo.1.orig echo.1 > echo.1.patch
>
> This patch file is what you would feed back into the system.
>
> If you want to install the modified file for your own use:
> $ gzip echo.1
> $ sudo cp echo.1.gz /usr/share/man/man1
>
>
> Acquisition of troff skills is a whole other can of worms.
> There is information about writing man pages in
> $ man mdoc and $ man mdoc.samples
> except that you get directed to some non-existent example files.
Yeah, that's always disappointing. The distribution packagers (eg, rpm)
often leave out examples, tutorials, ... Interestingly, they install
(generally) useless README's in /usr/share/... They _could have_ put the
missing useful parts there, but .. ah well, mindless build scripts to
blame, I suppose.
If there is something that looks especially interesting, I will often
download the source-rpm (or upstream tgz) just to get those extras.
The problem here is that the Linux man.pages were cribbed from BSD.
And the auxiliary example files didn't go along for the ride.
As a side comment, < http://man-wiki.net > looks like a good place to
remember. :-)
Persistence with Google has found the missing files
/usr/share/examples/mdoc and /usr/share/misc/mdoc.template online.
< http://cluster.earlham.edu/detail/bccd/usr/usr/share/examples/mdoc/ >
< http://cluster.earlham.edu/detail/bccd/usr/usr/share/misc/mdoc.template >
Very definitely found in the last place I looked. :-)
carl
--
carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
[email protected]
http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
